Monthly Archives: May 2017

Fix in on worse Ike Gehry

Catesby Leigh, writing in City Journal, reports the terrible news about the Frank Gehry designed proposal for an Eisenhower memorial. The formerly skeptical Eisenhower family now backs it. President Trump now backs it. In his proposed 2018 budget, Trump throws … Continue reading

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Steve Mouzon’s new book

Steve Mouzon’s excellent book The Original Green reflects thoughts I described in a review of that book and in my 2015 post “Love, beauty, architecture.” One of architecture’s most ambitious and creative thinkers, Mouzon is bringing out a second edition … Continue reading

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Saving the history underfoot

Robin Williams, an architectural historian at the Savannah College of Art & Design, delivered a TED talk to explain “How Historic Street Pavement Modernized the City.” Williams has a pleasant manner that conveys his conviction that historic pavement is a … Continue reading

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More on Penn Sta. rebuild

The Gothamist yesterday ran a long article by Jake Offenhartz, “A Dramatic Plan to Rebuild Penn Station & Restore its Lost Grandeur,” that explains the several initiatives involved in the proposal to rebuild Penn Station in its original Beaux Arts … Continue reading

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Own a free villa in Italy

Truly! Since not everyone is logged in to the roster of programmes gushing from Italy’s bureaucracy, such as it may be, check out this from the website Hyperallergic. Yes, Italy is giving away free castles, villas and other unused historic … Continue reading

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Unwelcome Arnold House?

Is the Welcome Arnold House (circa 1785), on Planet Street in Fox Point, doomed to demolition by neglect? That’s the question posed by Catherine Zipf’s architecture column in today’s Providence Journal. She wonders whether its owner, Walter Bronhard, intends to … Continue reading

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Sad travel to Manchester

Manchester has suffered a deadly blast delivered by Islamic extremists. Twenty-two have died and many others are injured. A five-minute video revealing the city’s many lovely classical buildings, set alas amid our era’s aggressive modernism, will not quell its horror … Continue reading

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TB on Fogarty’s demise

Here is my Traditional Building blog post from a couple months ago, around the time some ardent local preservationists held a funeral for the John C. Fo- garty Memorial Building, soon after its demolition began. Soon after that its demolition … Continue reading

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Bench press in Providence

The above photo is the first on a list of benches from “14 Most Creatively Perfect Benches and Seats from All Around the World,” on the website Postize. The list of benches has gone viral, if not postal. Since I … Continue reading

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Trip to Old City, Jerusalem

Here, from GlobeTrotter Alpha, is a 15-minute video of the Old City, Jerusalem, capital of Israel, with its Jewish, Muslim, Armenian and other sections, including the Western Wall and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Big events there today. Most … Continue reading

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